Big Muskie
Big Muskie was a coal mining Bucyrus-Erie 4250-W walking dragline owned by the "Central Ohio Coal Company" (formerly a division of "American Electric Power"), weighing nearly and standing nearly 22 stories tall. It operated in the U.S. state of Ohio from 1969 to 1991. Big Muskie was the world's largest dragline, and one of the world's largest mobile earth-moving machines after Marion Power Shovel built the 6360 stripping shovel called The Captain at the Captain mine in Illinois and the German bucket wheel excavators of the Bagger 288 and Bagger 293 family.For details see the table on the German Wiki. Big Muskie cost $25 million in 1969, the equivalent of $ }} today adjusted for inflation. Big Muskie removed more than of overburden, twice the amount of earth moved during the construction of the Panama Canal, uncovering over 20,000,000 metric tons (20,000,000 short tons) of coal. Its bucket could hold two Greyhound buses side by side. It took over 200,000 man hours to construct over a period of about two years. Big Muskie was powered by electricity supplied at 13,800 volts via a trailing cable, which had its own transporter/coiling units to move it. The electricity powered the main drives, eighteen and ten DC electric motors. Some systems in Big Muskie were electro-hydraulic, but the main drives were all electric.Extreme Mining Machines, by Keith Haddock, pub by MBI, ISBN 0-7603-0918-3 Big Muskie used the equivalent of the power for 27,500 homes. The machine had a crew of 5, and worked around the clock. Big Muskie was scrapped in 1999, despite calls that it be preserved as a museum. The bucket was relocated to a newly constructed Miners Memorial Park in Morgan County at . A wildlife park called The Wilds, which opened in 1994, was created from of the land stripped by Big Muskie for coal extraction and subsequently reclaimed. It is home to numerous species of African, Asian, and North American fauna. Specification The Big Muskie was a model 4250-W Bucyrus-Erie dragline (the only one ever built). With a 220 cubic yard bucket, she was the largest single-bucket digging machine ever created. Here are some of the specifications: * · Weight: 27 million lbs., or 13,500 short tons * · Bucket Capacity: 220 cubic yards, 325 tons * · Height: 222 ft., 6 in. * · Length of the boom: 310 feet * · Length of machine with boom down: 487 ft., 6 in. * · Empty bucket weight: 230 tons * · Width: 151 ft., 6 in., comparable to an eight-lane highway * · Cable diameter: 5 in * · Electrically powered: 13,800 volts * · Mobility: hydraulically driven walking feet See also *Dragline *The Silver Spade - another large coal mining machine from Ohio *MAN Takraf RB293 * List of Named Vehicles References *Little Mountain *Strip Mine External links * Tribute page, with pictures * Miners' Memorial Park -- Noble County tourism website * Attraction listing at Roadsideamerica.com * The Wilds –- wildlife park constructed on land mined by Big Muskie Category:Coal mining in the United States Category:Engineering vehicles Category:Named vehicles